


Between the Lines

by starraya



Series: because you're mine, I walk the line [1]
Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 14:59:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6859753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starraya/pseuds/starraya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vera confronts Bridget over her relationship with Franky Doyle, but is there something more than just her and the psychologist's recently formed friendship that's clouding her judgement? WRITTEN BEFORE THE AIRING OF S4E2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between the Lines

**Author's Note:**

> Was this entirely needed you ask, even though in a couple of days it will be invalidated? Yes it was. Bestfall is my new angsty Brotp and I'm going down with this ship.

Sat behind her desk in the Governor's office, her office, Vera Bennett stretched her neck from side to side in an effort to ease the strain she had found there this morning after waking up on the sofa in her front room, a empty bottle of wine on the floor next to her.

 

Hardly the best start for a day. Definitely not the best for a day like this. Vera had called Bridget to her office. The psychologist would be here any minute, would breeze in with a friendly, wide smile, her trademark one, the one that made the receiver feel at ease, feel understood.

 

Vera used to think it was a honest kind of smile, one of genuine compassion. Maybe it was, in part. Maybe it was just a ploy to get people to open up. She wondered if that's what Franky Doyle had fallen for, Bridget's smile.

 

Vera tugged at the black blazer of her uniform. She had ironed it this morning, immaculately. There was not a crease in it. Like there was not a hair stray from the tight knot of her bun.

 

She'd ditched the affirmation band.

 

There was a knock at her office door.

 

Bridget.

  
Vera straightened her back. True to expectation, Bridget strolled in, with her characteristic sprawling energy, that fooled you, at first glance, into thinking she was taller, longer-limbed then she was. It would be called gawkiness on anyone taller, but it had a birdlike-flutter about it, a strange elegance to it, the way her slim arms never kept still, the way she talked with her hands, the spring in her step as her boots clicked on the floor, that particular, confident way her hips and her shoulders rhythmically shifted, as she strode down the corridors of Wentworth. With purpose, with confidence. The two things Vera had thought she'd finally achieved after yesterday's relative success.

 

"I think congratulations is in order," Bridget greeted Vera with a bright smile.

  
"Congratulations?" Vera's tone was distracted; she had been focusing on the confrontation ahead. The thought of what she had to do had hung over her like a dark cloud. All her joy from yesterday, not screwing up the public speaking, finally feeling like she deserved to be Governor, had dissipated the moment she'd stood outside Bridget's house.

 

"The speech. Well done. I heard you smashed it."

 

"Will you close the door?"

  
Bridget was taken aback at Vera's quick, sharp tone, if only for a second. She didn't show it either. Smiling still, she complied, before waiting for the news Vera was obviously waiting to tell her.

 

Vera hesitated, drew a breath, but managed not to falter once over her next words. 

 

"Are you in a relationship with Franky Doyle?"

 

"I'm sorry?"

  
"I went to your house last night. I saw the two of you . . . together."

 

Bridget didn't pause before replying, but there was a hardness in her voice, when she responded, a hardness that there wasn't before. It was matched with a tightness in her smile.

 

"You must have been mistaken."

  
"Don't lie to me, Miss Westfall. I saw you both."

 

"Vera-" It was then that Bridget prayed to God Vera had not seen her and Franky when the former inmate had saw to it that Bridget wouldn't finish the report she had wanted too that night.

 

Celebration, in Franky Doyle's mind, didn't involve a lot of clothes. Bridget tried to push the knowledge that Vera hadn't told her just exactly what she'd seen last night, out her mind.

 

  
"You do realise the position you've put in? I trusted you, the board trusted you, the inmates."

 

"This has got nothing to do with the other inmates."

  
"So you admit it?"

 

"I didn't realise I was on trial here, Vera."

 

"Well, that would suggest, you've committed a crime. And we both know you have. Were you and Franky Doyle in a relationship when she was in the care of Wentworth?"

 

"I've told you. Nothing went on," Bridget said as she folded her arms across her chest. She had lost her smile.

 

"How do you expect me to believe that? You forget that I saw you in the library all those months ago. I let it pass, believed you, reinstated you-"

 

Befriended you, Vera wanted to add. But it sounded pathetic in her head, and it was. Bridget was not her friend. Bridget didn't stand for what Vera stood for. Didn't have any sense of morality, of law, or of the rules. The psychologist had violated every rule imaginable by having inappropriate relationships with a inmate. It made Vera feel sick.

 

Bridget decided to soften her tone, try a different line of defence. "Look, Vera, I can understand that you feel-"

 

But Vera didn't want to hear her excuses. Didn't want to hear any false apologies.

 

"Disappointed. Betrayed. Stupid for believing you. For not seeing between the lines. Except I did, didn't I? But you lied through your teeth."

 

Bridget unfolded her arms, took a deep breath. "Are you going to fire me? Go to the board? Because I guarantee that if you do-"

 

"I hope Doyle's worth it. Your career."

 

Vera wanted to ask whether Bridget actually loved Franky, and then remembered how Bridget had resigned only after Ferguson had threatened the innate's parole, and knew she already had the answer.

 

"Vera-"

 

Bridget's tone was knife-sharp, glinting with caution. Telling Vera to choose her next words carefully. Telling Vera to calm down. Telling herself to stay calm. Bridget had to stick to what remnant of professionalism she had left. It was the only thing that prevented her from wanting to punch the wall in frustration. She did not want to go home and tell Franky that it was all fucked. Everything. Them living together. Them spending lazy Sunday mornings in bed together, naked and content. Them having dinner together, sometimes talking about their days, sometimes being comfortable enough to let a silence fill the room, both of them grateful to just be home, with each other, after a shit day. That was all fucked now. 

 

Vera knew. And God's knows who she was going to do with that knowledge. What's more, Bridget thought, there was no fucking way she'd let Vera screw up Franky's parole. Bridget needed to sort this out, quick. Limit the damage, in whatever way possible.

 

"What are you going to do?"

 

Just then the office door swung open and a guard appeared. It was the woman that had given Vera Joan's letter last night, the one who worked in protective isolation.

 

"There is a thing called knocking?" Vera said, pursing her lips together in irritation.

 

"Sorry, Governor," the guard replied, "but Ferguson's legal team . . . they've applied for her to be put back in the general population."

 

"What?" Vera couldn't hide her shock.

 

"They can't," Bridget explained, incredulous, "Her psych evaluation clearly showed-"

 

"That's the thing, Miss Westfall, Ferguson's lawyer is saying it's invalid. They need a new one, and the report needs to warrant her continued stay in protection? Otherwise . . ."

 

The guard didn't need to elaborate. At that moment Vera's and Bridget's eyes met.

 

They both shared the same thought. 

 

Otherwise, they were all fucked.


End file.
